Pat Condell Excoriates The Left For Not Standing Up To Islamism

There is a lot to chew on in this latest rant from Pat Condell on the need for the tolerant to be more intolerant of intolerant religions than they are intolerant of denouncers of intolerant religions. While Condell’s attack on multiculturalism is too broad and at times his rhetoric is cringe-inducingly counter-productive, I do share his essential worries that a significant and powerful portion of the liberal left is dangerously accommodating of Islamism out of an inflated fear of chauvinism.

So, while I think the left is less genuinely supportive of religion as a whole and is more strategic and pragmatic in its sometimes obsequious deference to religion which demonstrates a desperation not to offend, nonetheless, the consequences of giving credence to the gripes of theocrats is often to legitimize them and backfire attempts to liberalize the moderates through appeasement.

In sum, while I don’t agree with every jot and tittle of Condell’s argument or how he makes it, he’s an important counter-correcting voice worth airing, so here goes:

This isn’t an unfair comparison. Eating disorders in the West occur at higher rates than in Middle Eastern countries, due to images of women in skin-tight clothing. Women in the US are literally dying to be thin. I say this not to prove that somehow burqa is the answer to this problem– but that each society has dangerous standards it holds women to, and that in some instances, there are far greater societal ills than body coverings.

Will a burqa ban make a strongly religious woman less religious? Will a burqa ban fix potential domestic abuse in the home? Will it somehow change fundamentalist men who use Islam to oppress their sisters or wives? Of course not. ‘The West’ is obsessed with Muslim veiling– whether it be hijab or the burqa– because it symbolizes something we which we cannot understand. Though when it comes to real issues that these women experience, I don’t think we follow through.

What concerns me about this is not just the restriction of a woman’s choice to don the burqa. Laws like this allow people in the West to pat themselves on the back, so to speak, in regards to “saving women”– without really asking the women themselves– and without questioning or understand what prejudices have lead to this ban. Prejudices that surface in violent and tragic ways– such as for Marwa al-Sherbini. Al-Sherbini, a pregnant Muslim woman in Germany, went to court to protect herself from a xenophobic neighbor, who called her “slut,” “terrorist,” and “Islamist.” She was fatally stabbed 18 times in front of her son in a German courtroom. Her husband is hospitalized, because when the police came to the scene, they automatically assumed the brown man was the attacker– and shot him.

Dr. Daniel Fincke has his PhD in philosophy from Fordham University and spent 11 years teaching in college classrooms. He wrote his dissertation on Ethics and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. On Camels With Hammers, the careful philosophy blog he writes for a popular audience, Dan argues for atheism and develops a humanistic ethical theory he calls “Empowerment Ethics”. Dan also teaches affordable, non-matriculated, video-conferencing philosophy classes on ethics, Nietzsche, historical philosophy, and philosophy for atheists that anyone around the world can sign up for. (You can learn more about Dan’s online classes here.) Dan is an APPA (American Philosophical Practitioners Association) certified philosophical counselor who offers philosophical advice services to help people work through the philosophical aspects of their practical problems or to work out their views on philosophical issues. (You can read examples of Dan’s advice here.) Through his blogging, his online teaching, and his philosophical advice services each, Dan specializes in helping people who have recently left a religious tradition work out their constructive answers to questions of ethics, metaphysics, the meaning of life, etc. as part of their process of radical worldview change.